An exercise in dispelling the myth that all in suburbia is banal and pointless only to find that, by and large, it actually is and that, more importantly, it is beautiful in its ordinariness.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Borscht

A game of two halves today. The working day - unbelievably rancid. You know when you expect certain things to happen and certain events to unfold in an certain way and then they don’t, that’s what I’d call eventful. But when the things that actually happen and the events that actually unfold are both unexpected and really shitty, well that’s what I call rancid.It would be indiscrete to go into details but everything just seemed to conspire at work today leaving me feeling breathless and languid.But home more than made up for it. N had a swimming lesson and did really well. I was 11 or 12 before I learned to swim and even now I tend to thrash the water to foam whilst moving backwards slowly. But N is a proper little fish doing breaststroke on his back and wotnot. I smiled at his brimming enthusiasm and failure to listen to pretty much most of what his teacher said. S sat with me and waved to him from time to time singing the theme to ‘Balamory’ and ‘Bob the Builder’ in his own strange and arcane language.Then too Tesco’s (boo) to pick up some bits and bobs for the diet. Since you ask it was bananas and skimmed today plus the rest of the butternut squash soup. All going well. Head in reasonable shape and not too tired either.Got us all home in time to feed macaroni cheese to boys (always a winner when you’re in a rush to get them to bed) before making borscht. Red cabbage and beetroot – it’s a bit of a red soup, this one. But I’ve had a little taste and although I can’t go silly on the sugar to sweeten it up or the single cream to garnish, it’s really good. So I’m up for beef and tomatoes tomorrow plus borscht to wash it all down. Yum. Oh, and I’ve lost a couple of kilos too, so far.Then to the PC to write emails for Greenbelt, watch The West Wing (is this not the best series for a long long time?) and finally blog all the way to bed. I should read some more of ‘The time Traveller’s Wife’ but I imagine I’ll be asleep before my head hits the pillow.